Hello, hello, all!! ^^ I hope February has been a lovely, cozy month for you all and that you’ve found some wonderful reads while snowed in! (If you are snowed in, that is.) I have been a tad absent from my blog a bit, because it is Chinese New Year over here (and so a Happy Chinese New Year to you all!!), but I decided it was high time I ought to get to this post. :)) (Well that, and I also wanted to pop in here to share a little moodboard I made on Pinterest this morning!
This is the ordinary link if thou wishes to hop onto the page directly (actually, please do just go to the page directly. The widget thing has messed up the order of the pins!!!!!! They ought to be in different sections not all on one page! *glares at widget*): https://www.pinterest.com/isabelleknightbooks/enchantria/
I had some spare time this morning, and I must say, I do not regret spending a whole morning creating this moodboard for my series. It is so very gorgeous, and I love seeing it completed in front of me!!! <3
And so, without further ado, let us hop into this new post!! Today, I am most pleased to have been tagged in the comments by the wonderful Journey Bloomfield for the Sunshine Blogger Award!!
La Rulesies:
- Display the award’s official logo somewhere on your blog.
- Thank the person who nominated you. (Thank ye, Journey Bloomfield. *bows*)
- Provide a link to your nominator’s blog. Here! It’s a wonderful blog, full of author interviews, writing tips, book reviews, and a splendid place for any writer to head to!
- Answer your nominator’s questions.
- Nominate up to eleven bloggers.
- Ask your nominees eleven questions.
- Notify your nominees by commenting on at least one of their blog posts.
1. What’s your favorite Lord of the Rings Character? (Or top five?)
One does not simply ask an author to pick their favorite LOTR character, Journey!! *shakes head disapprovingly* But if I were to choose, I would, of course, have to go with Eowyn, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, and Merry and Pippin. Yes, that’s six, but Merry and Pippin are practically joined at the hip, so we cannot separate them now, can we? XD They’re just so wonderful!!! Eowyn is such a brave character, and Merry and Pippin are just… they’re absolute chaos. We’d get along grandly, I think.
2. What books inspired your first novel or writing project?
So many books. I just stole ideas here and there from them, really. XD I would say my biggest inspirations were Warriors by Erin Hunter, Narnia by C.S Lewis, and Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan. I was thoroughly obsessed with those books, and while Enchantria isn’t too much like any of these books (except Narnia, I suppose.), those were my biggest inspirations.
3. How do you handle writing ‘dry spells’? Do you have a good way to re-motivate yourself?
Uhm…
I do not feel all that very well-equipped to handle this question. I am not all that great at handling writing ‘dry spells’ as I end up putting way too much pressure on myself. However, a way to re-motivate myself is moodboards and music related to my book! Moodboards (especially Pinterest ones) are always so gorgeous and going through them helps inspire me a lot. (Though this does not work all the time. It works if I am stuck in writer’s mud and just need to push through, but not if I’m burnt out. In which case, I take a break, listen to music, watch some movies, and just… generally try not to think about my book.)
4. Has a music track ever inspired one of your novels or stories?
I adore music so very much!!! And yes!! Music tracks have most certainly inspired my books (as well as story ideas! I’ve gotten a great deal of story ideas from songs.). I think the main one that inspired Enchantria was The Call by Regina Spektor. Every time I listen to that song, it always brings me back to my book world. <3 It is so very beautiful and so full of hope, and I love it so much. a thousand years by Christina Perri has also inspired my book. (Well, sort of. Mainly the verses of the song. Not the chorus though.)
Actually, perhaps I ought to just give you my playlist of songs that’ve inspired my books… https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2KuAtSeCDDOifnTlcg4ee6?si=83400932199548cd
But yes, music has indeed inspired my books, as well as a great deal of my story ideas!
5. What are you currently writing?
A cozy, middle-grade fantasy!! And that’s about all you’re getting from me.
(Oooh look, I found out how to insert GIFs!)
6. Are you a flat earther? Do you know any flat earthers? Do YOU live in a round world?
Oh my. I was not aware flat earthers existed till now, actually. I’m not a flat earther, and I do believe the world is round. If the world was flat, then surely if you kept sailing for all eternity, you would’ve fallen off the edge at some point, instead of ending back up wherever you started sailing. I don’t know any flat earthers, but I would be most intrigued to hear of any experiences with people who’ve actually met flat earthers.
7. What is one way you have grown this year? What is one way you wish you would have grown this year? (I missed New Year but just cast back to 2025).
This is… a rather hard question. Hm. I think one way I’ve grown this year is I’ve learned it’s okay to take a break. It is something I have struggled with so very much — as is evident by the amount of burnout I had in late summer and fall — and something I still struggle with. I had to put down one of my WIPs earlier this year because I was just too close to the story and banging and banging and banging at it wasn’t making it any better. And since setting it down, I’ve found so much more joy in writing and I haven’t been stressed out every single day. I shall come back to it, eventually, but taking breaks is something we writers all need to do every once in a while.
As for one way I wish I would have grown this year…
I wish I’d taken more breaks. And spent less time beating myself up over writer’s block and burnout and had instead taken more time to just step outside and do other things. Life has been crazy and wild and incredible this year, but I do wish — especially in the summer — that I’d stopped worrying so much over my story and had instead just had fun, done things, and not spend all my time worrying and beating myself up for it.
8. In an entirely ideal situation, what would your daily routine look like?
Oooh. I love this question. Tis something I have dreamed about so many times. For starters, I would be living in a nice little, cozy cottage (like Bilbo’s hobbit hole!) in Ireland or Scotland or England or anywhere with a nice, quiet forest and fields. I would be awake at seven am and writing with music while rain poured outside. I’d write 2,000 words a day, and my days would just be filled with daydreaming and reading and playing the tin whistle. I’d spend the afternoon reading or going to a library or having a picnic in the fields, and then in the evening, I’d just read and chill or talk with my friends.
Which is totally unrealistic, but… a girl can dream, can’t she? :))
9. What is one really insightful piece of advice or wisdom you’ve received this year? (Again, 2025. Unless you’ve gotten some stellar advice this January, of course).
I received a lot of insightful pieces of advice and wisdom from so many different authors. (And I am so very grateful to all of them who have supported me and helped me in my writing!!) It’s hard to pick only one, but I will go with one that I got from Ann Mazer. She is the author of Spilling Ink and a bunch more wonderful books for young readers, and that was to evaluate criticism carefully to make sure it is right for you. It is something I so needed to hear at the time, because I was in this writing community that was, in my opinion, very focused on planning and plotting and story structure. (Which is perfectly fine! I know that works for a lot of people.) But I was a pantser. And a lot of the times, either on blogs or in that writing community, I felt like there were so many rules for writing middle-grade. Rules that I had to follow to be published or a good writer. And that simply is not true at all. There are plenty of writers who break the rules, and there isn’t only one way to write a book! Find what works for you and find other writers who support your love of writing above all. Evaluate rules and criticism carefully and ask yourself these questions:
- Does it serve your story?
- Does it make your story stronger?
- Does it make sense to you?
- What is the purpose of the rules?
It is a piece of advice I go back to so many times, and something I think a lot of new writers should keep in mind.
10. If you had to be stranded on a deserted island with one person two people for three hundred and twenty seven days, who would you pick?
*goes back and erases “one person” and replaces it with “two people*
*grins sneakily*
*vanishes into the mist as if I was never there in the first place*
Without a doubt, my dear friends and fellow WITWIGIANS, Hallie Kropf and Journey Bloomfield. It would be absolute utter chaos and it would be glorious!!!! We could just spend three hundred and twenty seven days writing, writing, writing. And lug all of our books there and build some library made out of trees or something. And there would be no one to disturb us! We’d just be three writers in solitaryment (solitaryment?? solitary??) just working on our books. And also Izzy, of course. (I am with Hallie here!!! Izzy does not count. She’s a panda!) She’d murder any monstrous creatures living on the island. We would be very well protected. XD
Also, for some reason, I read three hundred twenty seven days as three hundred twenty seven years….
11. What is the weirdest dream you’ve ever had? (I wrote this before I got tagged by Isabelle, by the by. I cannot be accused of copying her).
Great minds think alike, my dear. I’ve had a great deal of weird dreams. Most of them I completely forget five minutes after I wake up. However, there is one dream I’ve remembered for years and years. I think I was like, seven when I had the dream. And I dreamed I was being chased by a zombie all throughout our apartment (I was deathly afraid of zombies at the time, by the by) and then suddenly jumped out of the bathroom window to escape. And then I somehow didn’t die and just landed perfectly fine, and when I looked around me, I was suddenly in this beautiful place with cherry trees around me (and cherry blossoms floating down around me) and golden sunlight and golden specks just drifting all around me. It is an image I have never been able to erase from my mind.
~ ~ ~
And that, folks, was the Sunshine Blogger Award tag, take two! :)) (I am saving the tagsies for a later post, as I have another Sunshine Blogger to get to.) A thank you, again, to Journey Bloomfield for tagging me, and I hope all you all enjoyed my bookish ramblings! Do let me know down in the comments what you thought (and also if you like the moodboard!!!). I love hearing from y’all!
And now it’s back to wandering and getting lost in the misty woods of my mind till further notice*….
Till next time,
-Isabelle
*well, till this book is finished, at least. As of now, my mind is very much a misty, magical wood. And by the time I start a new project, it might end up transforming into a magical city of dragons. Who knows? Minds are delightfully strange things.
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